My Story

The most influential games of my childhood were Age of Empires 2 , Lineage 2, Dynasty Warriors 3 and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series.

I couldn't help but always want to combine them together in my own way. I had a lot of ideas on what
specifically that would look like. What I envisioned from a young age was an over world campaign where your actions in battle carried over and the battles were fought DW3 style.

Right now Mount and Blade 2 and Total War (which adapts the battles to battalions of men) are the closest examples of this idea.

Unfortunate Start

Wanting to pursue my dreams of game development I transferred to school called ITT Tech for a bachelors in game design my 2nd year of college.

Sadly this was a mistake, as I quickly saw this school was a scam, I took my 2 year associates and got out. This put my dreams of game development on pause. (ITT Tech was later shut down by the US government)

Modding

Sometime around 2015 I discovered I could mod Age of Empires 2. I became obsessed.
I put my favorite Dynasty Warriors characters in as heroes for the Chinese faction and then proceeded to do so
with rest of the civs. I fell in love with all the other mods I saw out there and combined them into one totally unique giant overhaul.

Then sometime in 2016 I discovered the TW franchise and instantly was addicted.I started with Shogun2, what a master piece. I wanted to see Tadakatsu Honda from Samurai Warriors in this game, and I was extremely excited when I found out modding was possible. I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to figure out how to mod a new character into Shogun 2, but thanks to TWCenter.net I pulled it off.

Looking back, this should not have been my first mod for TW. It involved startpos editing which is something drastically more complex than regular db mods. This is something I frequently tell new modders just starting out that ask me for advice. Start simple.

Next, I extracted 30+ character models from DW3 and put them into Shogun2 as their own factions, I even hired another modder to make me my first custom Lu Bu model.

Modding reignited my passion and desire to get back into game development all over again.

Back to School

I went back to school at UW Milwaukee for an IT degree in hopes it would bring me closer to my dream as I had been cooking for my profession at the time. Eventually I found I really enjoyed coding in general and switched my major from Information Science & Technology to Computer Science

Overly Ambitious

My Shogun 2 mod was cool, but it wasn't enough.

After some research on whats possible, the next summer I decided I would make an entire overhaul converting feudal Japan into medieval China, bringing me one step closer to my dream game. I also wanted to use this mod as a sales pitch to Creative Assembly for a future title and to hire me as a game developer.

This was a massive project which involved large scale map editing (only one by 1 other person at the time), rigging in tons of new models, and reworking almost every system from the building lines to technologies to units.

Sadly, this didn't work out. As it turned out they had been working on the same idea for the last 3 years,out of no where Total War Three Kingdoms was announced.

I was crushed and overjoyed at the same time. I applied anyway with my 90% finished project and didn't get the job I hoped for.

Moving Forward

I've since continued on with my degree- transferring to UW Stout for their Computer Science and Game Design degree where I have learned an immense amount more about game development.

Not just from the courses, but from the like minded students on campus. My favorite part about Stout is the emphasis on group projects, I think this really separates them from other CS programs. Group work on multi technical projects such as games remains a highly transferable skill for any jobs. This helps students obtain a certain kind of experience that is commonly hard to get prior to an entry level role.

Now I've started to make my own games, and of course have continued modding my favorite titles.

Stardock

I worked for 1 year and 7 months at Stardock in Plymouth Michigan as an Associate Game Designer before the tech layoffs of 2023 hit.

During my time here I was able to work on 2 strategy games and meet some really awesome people.

I was exposed to the benefits and drawbacks of working on a propriety engine, and as well as trade offs of mid-sized studio communication/collaboration pains.

I took away some very valuable lessons that I plan to apply to my future game dev work.

Favorite Games

Dynasty Warriors 3XL , Lineage 2, Total War Three Kingdoms, Tiger Knight, Nioh, Xenoblade Chronicles, Dragons Dogma

Other things I enjoy

Volleyball, Coffee, Keto